Media2020 and Public Broadcasters International Conferences in Romania

Monday 04 September, 2017

Conference venue in Sinaia Romania

Media2020, a meeting place for radio, TV and other media broadcasters on the 21st Century information highway between Europe and the Asia-Pacific, will be held in conjunction with Public Broadcasting International in association with Radio Romania in Sinaia, near Bucharest, this month.

To be held on September 11, the theme of the third edition of Media2020 - “How can Asia-Europe cooperation help meet new media challenges” - will focus on the cooperation between the Asia-Pacific and Europe by sharing experience and ideas.

It will be a chance to dig deeply into some of the major issues challenging broadcasting and communications in the 21st Century. Some are technical, some commercial, some cultural or political, some aesthetic and some that go to the very heart of what it is to be human in today’s societies.

In wider social terms, it is a chance for everyone involved in public service broadcasting to re-examine how we help to build stronger communities and ensure that no-one is left behind in the digital century.

The conference will open with a Round Table Session on ‘Trends in Media Development: Where exactly are we going?’.

The first session is ‘Diversity and tolerance – media actors or observers’, followed by Session 2 ‘Who do we trust: the challenges facing news media’ and Session 3 ‘Is digital convergence finally here?’.

Session 4 ‘Social media – disruptive or constructive?’ will be moderated by AsiaRadioToday’s SteveAhern, who is also CEO, International Media and Broadcasting Academy (IMBA), Australia.

In this session, a panel of experts will discuss how much of a help and how much a hindrance is social media to established broadcasters and also look at how broadcasters might change to extract the maximum positive value out of 'disruptive' developments. The discussion will range not only over technologies and content models but also over core principles of why we do what we do. Do we need broadcasters in the disruptive age and, if so, what for?

Public Broadcasting International (PBI) 2017 will be held at the same venue on September 12 and 13.

Public service broadcasting executives from around the world have met annually since 1991 to share experiences and ideas about how best to deal with challenges unique to public service broadcasting.

PBI was created on the initiative of TV Ontario and NHK, and was soon joined by many others including PBS, CBC, BBC, KBS, SVT, DR, NRK, SABC, RTE, and France Télévisions.

Since then more than 80 public service broadcasters – representing all continents – have become members.

The two-day meeting will cover topics that may be essential to survive as a broadcaster, while reaffirming the values that should be embraced as public service media. PBI offers broadcasters an rare opportunity to meet someone who is struggling to overcome problems similar to those they have encountered.

The first session is titled ‘Redefining the Public Media value in 21st century’, followed by the second session ‘Financial system changes and the defence of PSM’, which will be moderated by Steve Ahern.

The theme focuses on the finance of the PSM. The system of financing public broadcasters is important in terms of keeping them independent. May it be license fee or government appropriation, there are many different systems being practiced. Modifications of license fee system are introduced in some countries to catch up the time of multimedia while new initiatives by public broadcasters are being taken when asking for funding from government. How can we keep our financing system relevant to the rapidly changing media landscape? What would be the most relevant way of funding PSM with the different size of countries (population) and with the different background?